One of three PCs is losing Internet Connection - help sought

The most recent computer I have put together runs with WinXP and as
far as I can recall all the settings I made at installation are the
same as two other PCs that I have for the family.

All are connected to the Internet via the same router/modem
(D-LinkDSL-300G+ and a Belkin 4 port cabled router).

The new PC loses connection to the Internet - this seems to happen
after Internet access and then an hour or so of inactivity. The other
2 PCs remain connected. To re-establish contact I have to turn the PC
off and start again.

Is it likely that I have a setting doing this, that I inadvertently
allowed? Any suggestions? I cannot see anything obvious that is
causing this.

km

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
km <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> The most recent computer I have put together runs with WinXP and as
> far as I can recall all the settings I made at installation are the
> same as two other PCs that I have for the family.
>
> All are connected to the Internet via the same router/modem
> (D-LinkDSL-300G+ and a Belkin 4 port cabled router).
>
> The new PC loses connection to the Internet - this seems to happen
> after Internet access and then an hour or so of inactivity. The other
> 2 PCs remain connected. To re-establish contact I have to turn the PC
> off and start again.
>
> Is it likely that I have a setting doing this, that I inadvertently
> allowed? Any suggestions? I cannot see anything obvious that is
> causing this.
>
> km

Chances are that it's getting its IP address from the router - acting as a
DHCP server - with a short lease time, which is expiring. Maybe the other
PCs have fixed IP addresses and don't suffer from the same problem?

When you first turn the PC on, type IPCONFIG /ALL at a command prompt - and
print out what is displayed (or copy and paste it into Notepad and save it).

When you lose internet access, do the same again - and compare the output
with what you saved earlier. Any differences should provide a clue as to
what is happening.

If you appear to be losing your IP address (as I suspect) try typing
IPCONFIG /RENEW - and see if that fixes it without rebooting. If it *does*,
you either need to increase the lease time in the router config or give that
PC a fixed IP address.
--
Cheers,
Roger
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"km" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> The most recent computer I have put together runs with WinXP and as
> far as I can recall all the settings I made at installation are the
> same as two other PCs that I have for the family.
>
> All are connected to the Internet via the same router/modem
> (D-LinkDSL-300G+ and a Belkin 4 port cabled router).
>
> The new PC loses connection to the Internet - this seems to happen
> after Internet access and then an hour or so of inactivity. The other
> 2 PCs remain connected. To re-establish contact I have to turn the PC
> off and start again.
>
> Is it likely that I have a setting doing this, that I inadvertently
> allowed? Any suggestions? I cannot see anything obvious that is
> causing this.

When you lose connection to the internet, check whether you have a
connection to the router.

The command
IPCONFIG /ALL
will show the default gateway, i.e. the router Try pinging that address.

Alsmost all routers have a web page built in - so you should be able to see
the router status.

If you can ping the router but not see its web page, then there is a problem
with your browser.

Report back ...

--
Graham J

On Fri, 04 May 2007 15:13:34 +0100, km <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>The most recent computer I have put together runs with WinXP and as
>far as I can recall all the settings I made at installation are the
>same as two other PCs that I have for the family.
>
>All are connected to the Internet via the same router/modem
>(D-LinkDSL-300G+ and a Belkin 4 port cabled router).
>
>The new PC loses connection to the Internet - this seems to happen
>after Internet access and then an hour or so of inactivity. The other
>2 PCs remain connected. To re-establish contact I have to turn the PC
>off and start again.
>
>Is it likely that I have a setting doing this, that I inadvertently
>allowed? Any suggestions? I cannot see anything obvious that is
>causing this.
>
>km

Thank you to both of you. I will follow the procedure through. Of
course I must now wait for it to disconnect which will probably not be
tonight due to continuing usage.

km

"km" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Fri, 04 May 2007 15:13:34 +0100, km <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>All are connected to the Internet via the same router/modem
>>(D-LinkDSL-300G+ and a Belkin 4 port cabled router).
>>
>>The new PC loses connection to the Internet - this seems to happen
>>after Internet access and then an hour or so of inactivity. The other
>>2 PCs remain connected. To re-establish contact I have to turn the PC
>>off and start again.

>>km

On the subject of finding out just what is disconnecting, it may be an
advantage to enable 'show icon in notification area when connected' and
'notify me when this connection has limited or no connectivity'. These
options are set from within Start / settings /network connections / then
properties of the 'local area connection'.
The reason I suggest this is you will be able to view the data link status
to your router without activating any extra windows services and hence
possibly reconnecting a link before you know its status. You will see one
icon on the taskbar adjacent to the clock showing two pc monitors.
Providing you turn off your screen saver and power save for the monitor you
can view the connection status after the set time. If you see a red cross
then the link is broken, if there is a little yellow symbol beneath the icon
it usually indicates the pc is waiting for an ip address from the routers
dhcp server.
If the connection is cut then as well as looking at the lease time on the
router you should also look at the power management for your pc's Ethernet
port / card. Xp may be shutting it down.
You should also be able to view the router port connection status by logging
directly into your router from one of your other pc's and viewing 'dhcp
status' it should show ip address of pc's connected.

Gio

On Fri, 4 May 2007 17:21:11 +0100, "Graham"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>"km" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>> The most recent computer I have put together runs with WinXP and as
>> far as I can recall all the settings I made at installation are the
>> same as two other PCs that I have for the family.
>>
>> All are connected to the Internet via the same router/modem
>> (D-LinkDSL-300G+ and a Belkin 4 port cabled router).
>>
>> The new PC loses connection to the Internet - this seems to happen
>> after Internet access and then an hour or so of inactivity. The other
>> 2 PCs remain connected. To re-establish contact I have to turn the PC
>> off and start again.
>>
>> Is it likely that I have a setting doing this, that I inadvertently
>> allowed? Any suggestions? I cannot see anything obvious that is
>> causing this.
>
>When you lose connection to the internet, check whether you have a
>connection to the router.
>
>The command
>IPCONFIG /ALL
>will show the default gateway, i.e. the router Try pinging that address.
>
>Alsmost all routers have a web page built in - so you should be able to see
>the router status.
>
>If you can ping the router but not see its web page, then there is a problem
>with your browser.
>
>Report back ...

to Roger and Graham

Have completed the ipconfig/all comparison and both were identical.

ZoneAlarm is installed on both so I started a check of that. Turning
it off allowed Internet access. Not sure why it is allowing access
initially and then at a later time denying it. I note that the other
PC's with ZoneAlarm have Medium Security and this was High so assume
this is the root cause.

Will see if the new setting to Medium prevents recurrence of
disconnection tomorrow.

Thanks for your input.

km

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, Roger Mills
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>Chances are that it's getting its IP address from the router - acting as a
>DHCP server - with a short lease time, which is expiring. Maybe the other
>PCs have fixed IP addresses and don't suffer from the same problem?
With all due respect Roger, that's rubbish. Part of the DHCP protocol
allows for renewal of expiring address leases and the lease should be
automatically renewed with the same address as long as;
A. The PC is still switched on.
B. The MAC address hasn't changed.
C. The DHCP pool isn't so ludicrously small that you're short of
addresses.

If either of the above are false, then it's possible that another
machine will snatch the address but that machine would have had to have
had no IP address allocated by the router for some time or its MAC
address changed for it to get a new address.
>
>When you first turn the PC on, type IPCONFIG /ALL at a command prompt - and
>print out what is displayed (or copy and paste it into Notepad and save it).
>
>When you lose internet access, do the same again - and compare the output
>with what you saved earlier. Any differences should provide a clue as to
>what is happening.
>
>If you appear to be losing your IP address (as I suspect) try typing
>IPCONFIG /RENEW - and see if that fixes it without rebooting. If it *does*,
>you either need to increase the lease time in the router config or give that
>PC a fixed IP address.

--
Clint Sharp

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>, km
<(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>The most recent computer I have put together runs with WinXP and as
>far as I can recall all the settings I made at installation are the
>same as two other PCs that I have for the family.
>
>All are connected to the Internet via the same router/modem
>(D-LinkDSL-300G+ and a Belkin 4 port cabled router).
>
>The new PC loses connection to the Internet - this seems to happen
>after Internet access and then an hour or so of inactivity. The other
>2 PCs remain connected. To re-establish contact I have to turn the PC
>off and start again.
>
Click start menu, click run, type in cmd and click OK, type IPCONFIG
/renew After a few seconds if you're using DHCP it should come back and
show you the newly acquired IP address. If it comes back with 0.0.0.0
then you've got a cable/router/NIC problem, you need to fault find by
substitution. However;

If you're using USB network stuff (and I believe it can happen with
PCI/integrated devices, not seen it but..)
Open control panel, select network connections, take a look at the icons
in there, if the one you use to connect to the router is greyed it's
disabled. Right click it and select enable. If it's not disabled or it's
come back to life, then double click it, select configure and then power
management, uncheck 'allow the computer to turn this device off to save
power'

Reboot the PC. Test.
>Is it likely that I have a setting doing this, that I inadvertently
>allowed? Any suggestions? I cannot see anything obvious that is
>causing this.

>
>km

--
Clint Sharp

In message <(E-Mail Removed)>
at 22:01:26 on Fri, 4 May 2007, km <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
>ZoneAlarm is installed on both so I started a check of that. Turning
>it off allowed Internet access. Not sure why it is allowing access
>initially and then at a later time denying it. I note that the other
>PC's with ZoneAlarm have Medium Security and this was High so assume
>this is the root cause.
>
Do you use hibernate much? I had allsorts of problems with internet
starting up after a hibernate
--
Mike News

On Fri, 4 May 2007 22:27:28 +0100, Mike
<turnpike_user@turnpike_REMOVEuser.THIScomANDTHI S> wrote:

>In message <(E-Mail Removed)>
>at 22:01:26 on Fri, 4 May 2007, km <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote
>>ZoneAlarm is installed on both so I started a check of that. Turning
>>it off allowed Internet access. Not sure why it is allowing access
>>initially and then at a later time denying it. I note that the other
>>PC's with ZoneAlarm have Medium Security and this was High so assume
>>this is the root cause.
> >
>Do you use hibernate much? I had allsorts of problems with internet
>starting up after a hibernate

No I have turned off all power saving and hibernation options.

km